When the nationwide lockdowns were announced in March 2020, it instantly became clear that technology will play a significant role in helping the world cope with the pandemic and recover from its impacts, both social and financial.

Being a technology-first company, we knew the bright minds at TechNext have the potential to contribute to this struggle and that is exactly what they did.

The CareNext decision committee, led by its Director Mr. <name>, realized that the lockdowns had severely affected the ongoing education of school students. Here are some challenges that needed immediate attention:

Challenges Faced By Educational Institutions During The Pandemic

While it is no secret that families across the country were struggling financially, the condition of the schools was being overlooked. Besides the financial strain, schools across India were also facing an additional, perhaps more dangerous possibility.

It was observed that while a majority (60%-75%, depending on the region) of parents were eager to send their children back to school as soon as possible, there were also a significant percentage (6%-19%) that displayed serious concerns about sending their children back to school.

This fact, considered with that fact that a national average of 26% of school children had started helping their parents to contribute to the dwindling household income. The probability of these children permanently dropping out of school was alarmingly high.

These challenges acted as fuel to the already raging fire of the educational institutions’ financial troubles. In a survey of 442 non-state schools, 4 out of 5 respondents reported collecting less than 20% of the school fees that was due. A whopping 51% reported collecting absolutely no fees in the last three months before the survey was conducted.

These numbers seem even more alarming when one considers that 79% of school owners reported having no alternate sources of income.

CareNext understood that the technology to conduct virtual classes already existed and was easily accessible.

However, without the necessary financial and technical support, implementing online learning was proving to be a serious challenge.

The CareNext team realized that a 2 pronged strategy can be applied to help the schools:

Firstly ensure that no matter how challenging it might be the students will have to remain connected to school, there can be #NoLockDownOnEducation.

Secondly, the parent community will need help becoming self reliant and money smart.

In the same survey mentioned earlier, 68% of schools reported having inadequate access to digital services. Because of this, 87% of non-state schools were not able to take any sort of action to equip their teachers to provide online education. Another survey, conducted in August 2020 revealed that 50% of college teachers were still not comfortable with teaching online.

On the other hand, eLearning tools and technology were available to a measly 11% of school students.

That’s not all, the percentage of ‘out-of-school’ students between the age groups of 6-10 years shot up to 5.3% in 2020 from 1.8% in 2018. To put this into perspective, India would add 1.5 million to 2 million in our out of school children numbers.

In many cases, the teachers had to come together to equip each other with the tools and the training required to effectively deliver training in a virtual environment.

In other words, even in the schools where the technology was made available to students and teachers, the teachers did not have the technical capabilities required to effectively impart knowledge virtually.

CareNext determined that the challenge was not one related to technology but the practice of teaching virtually. While a small percentage of schools were able to afford external assistance for their teachers, most were left with the responsibility of providing education through a completely alien medium without any guidance or resources whatsoever.

Among the many challenges associated with education during the pandemic, we figured that our contribution, as a technology company, will make the most significant difference in overcoming this challenge.

CareNext And Mimber Academy: A Collaboration to Enable Virtual Education

To address this issue CareNext Collaborated with Mimber Academy who provided a complete solution for virtual Education.

As a response to COVID we not only equipped schools with free access to a fully loaded Learning Management System, experts from Mimber Academy have also pioneered the concept of Heutagogy to make turn the students into confident and independent lifelong learners.

With expertise in the fields of online learning, Mimber Academy was the ideal choice for providing training to all the stakeholders of the school to help them minimise the learning curve and adapt to the sudden change at the earliest.

As a result of this collaboration, CareNext and Mimber Academy were able to train hundreds of teachers across various schools in the different regions of the country. With this training, and the tools provided by Mimber Academy, countless students were able to enjoy uninterrupted access to high quality education that they deserve.

Conclusion

This collaboration was just one facet of the many initiatives that CareNext was engaged in during the nationwide lockdowns because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider it a privilege to be in a position where we can offer any kind of help to anyone during these difficult times. At the same time, we thank Mimber Academy and its Founder, Mr. Misbah Syed, without whose expertise and assistance, this initiative would not have been possible.